'    Copyright 2008 Jan Molnar <jan.molnar@abds.de>
'
'    This file is part of JCQ.

'    JCQ is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
'    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
'    the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or
'    (at your option) any later version.

'    JCQ is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
'    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
'    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
'    GNU General Public License for more details.

'    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
'    along with JCQ. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

''' <summary>
''' Provides contract to implementation mapping. Mappings can either be configured by the
''' Microkernel ConfigurationSection or using the AddImplementationMapping method at runtime.
''' </summary>
Public Interface IMapper
    ''' <summary>
    ''' Gets the System.Type of the implementation of the supplied contract.
    ''' </summary>
    Function GetImplementationType(Of I)() As System.Type

    ''' <summary>
    ''' Gets the System.Type of the implementation of the supplied contract.
    ''' </summary>
    Function GetImplementationType(ByVal interfaceType As Type) As System.Type

    ''' <summary>
    ''' Creates the implemenation of the supplied contract.
    ''' </summary>
    Function CreateImplementation(Of I)(ByVal ParamArray args() As System.Object) As I
    ''' <summary>
    ''' Creates the implemenation of the supplied contract.
    ''' </summary>
    Function CreateImplementation(ByVal interfaceType As Type, ByVal ParamArray args() As System.Object) As Object

    ''' <summary>
    ''' Checks whether the implemenation of the supplied contract exists.
    ''' </summary>
    Function ExistsImplementation(Of I)() As Boolean
    ''' <summary>
    ''' Checks whether the implemenation of the supplied contract exists.
    ''' </summary>
    Function ExistsImplementation(ByVal interfaceType As Type) As Boolean

    ''' <summary>
    ''' Mapps a given contract to a given implementation.
    ''' </summary>
    Sub AddImplementationMapping(ByVal contractType As System.Type, ByVal implementationType As System.Type)
End Interface